And The Little Bird Sang
by freephoebe
Summary: In Asgard, young Lorelei becomes increasingly envious and frightened of her sister Amora's growing power and madness. As she struggles to understand her own magic, secrets begin to drive her apart from her best friend, Loki. Lorelei grows closer to Lady Sif, who is training in secret to be a warrior. However, Lorelei's true feelings for Sif threaten to throw everything into chaos.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue: Have You Forgotten?

…

_The Bus, near the California/Nevada border._

"I understand you're looking for someone," Coulson said, grateful to return to the matter at hand, and leave the subject of his rise from the dead for another day.

"I am hunting her," said Lady Sif. "Lorelei."

_Lorelei._ The name still had the power to make her heart sink into her stomach, and she clenched her fist so that her sword hand would not tremble. It was 600 years since the events that had bred a generation of mourners throughout the nine realms, herself included, but anger lives long among those whose lives seem an eternity to the adolescent peoples of the worlds. On her tongue the name would always taste of bitterness and betrayal.

"What kind of powers are we talking about?" asked one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, a man whose form spoke of skill in combat and whose face spoke of nothing. "Strength? Speed?"

Sif shook her head. "Sorcery. She bends and shapes the will of men to her own purpose."

"Only men? Her powers don't work on women?" A female agent, in whom Sif recognized her own fierce determination. And perhaps some of her own pain.

"No. Men have an inherent weakness we do not share." The female agent nodded; to her this was plainly self-evident. But doubt flickered in the face of the male agent. Even as she explained that the strongest of men could resist Lorelei's voice but never her touch, Sif could sense this man's complacent certainty that he would never surrender control of his own mind. He was trained, no doubt, to withstand great pain, physical and psychological torture, and all the ingenious tools that Midgardians had developed to make others speak and perform their bidding. His every bone might break, but he was certain his mind would not.

_Haldor thought the same_. Another name that still conjured the pain of half a millennia ago. Haldor had been too proud to be cautious, too dutiful to fear for himself, and, yes, too stubborn to admit the full extent of the danger that faced them all. Perhaps he had even imagined that love might protect him, that Lorelei's arrows of enchantment would bounce harmlessly off a heart shielded by the love that he and Sif shared.

The last time she had seen him he had looked at her with sorrow in his eyes and, worse, with a profound pity. That was the true cruelty of Lorelei's sorcery—that it left men so unchanged despite their newfound loyalty and devotion to her. Haldor had remained as brave and as generous and as thoughtful as he had ever been, and his guilt over the pain he caused Sif was real, though no amount of it could persuade him to leave Lorelei's side. In almost every way he had still been Haldor, the man who had sworn his love to her with all the quiet passion of a man whose emotions run slow but deep. And with sorrow in his eyes he had drawn his sword against her and promised to cut her down if she threatened harm to Lorelei.

No, she couldn't do this. Not now. Resolutely, Sif pushed these memories aside, and focused on explaining to Phil Coulson and his team how her enemy might be silenced once again.

...

On the whole, her prison cell had been far more comfortable. In the spare elegance of the room to which she had been confined for 600 years, it had almost been possible to imagine that she was living a life of voluntary asceticism and contemplation.

Now, in the first days of her long-awaited freedom, her situation had barely improved, and some might say it had worsened. The dark musty hole that Rooster called a bar was only another kind of prison, a miserable island amidst a vast ocean of dead, brown hills. Was she to be ruler of this wasteland, an insignificant queen ant of a fragile sand hill, populated by a few scruffy men in leather?

This Nevada, as Rooster called it, seemed already to have been washed clean by plagues. What was there to destroy in this land of nothingness?

A sound like many small explosions suddenly broke through the stale air.

"What is that?" Lorelei demanded impatiently.

"Well, it seems we've caught the attention of the law," Rooster said with a note of concern in his voice.

She turned swiftly and met his eye. "You promised to fight for me," she reminded him in a soft voice, and she felt the strength of her power over him tighten.

"Yeah, and I will," he said edgily. "But they got a lot of firepower out there. I mean, hell, they even got some Medieval Times chick. She's got, like, a sword and everything."

More than one of Rooster's words were meaningless to her, but Lorelei understood enough to know immediately who it was dogging her footsteps once again after all these years.

"Sif," she said with an angry grimace, but inside she was less certain of her emotions. On the one hand, it was more than possible that Sif had come with every intention of finishing her off completely. She did not expect mercy should things turn sour this time, least of all from Sif.

On the other hand, what good were victories, plunder, destruction and power, if they did not come at Sif's expense? It was right that the loyal Asgardian shieldmaiden should be there to bear witness and to suffer over what she had wrought, since, were it not for her, none of this would have happened.

The door exploded inwards, the cheap plastic blinds rattling widely against the glass, and Sif marched inside the dusty bar. She wore armor Lorelei had never seen but otherwise she was unchanged, from the length of her dark brown hair to her long and confident strides. Lorelei tasted blood in her mouth, and realized that she was biting down fiercely on the inside of her cheek.

"Lorelei," said Sif coldly. "Still manipulating men to do your dirty work, I see."

"And I see you're still a step or two behind," Lorelei responded with a condescending smile.

"You know how this ends, Lorelei. So come willingly."

_Come willingly?_ She would have come willingly enough, once. She had been Sif's to command, once. How dare she speak those words to her now? How dare she order her in that cool way, like one orders a recalcitrant child? How dare Sif be so business-like, as though this were just another job and not the first time in 600 years she had been face to face with the woman whose story had briefly been her story, before the tale had splintered into jagged pieces that tore at them both?

"You mistake me for someone who fears you," Lorelei snarled. "I've bested you before. Or have you forgotten?"

_Have you forgotten, Sif? _Have you forgotten any of it? Have you forgotten what we once shared?


	2. Chapter 2

And The Little Bird Sang

Chapter One

...

She had always been here, she was certain of that. She was a root, just one of the many dark and curving roots that leapt from the soft ground and reached high into the air, twisting together into a gnarled mass. There was no time, not here, just roots and mist. Here it was peaceful, so peaceful…

Suddenly, there were voices. How could there be voices? Roots did not speak, and there was nothing but roots here, roots and mist. The voices grew louder. Lorelei frowned. The voices were wrong. For that matter, the frown was wrong. Roots did not frown.

One of the voices became clearer, loud and deep. _Thor_, her mind suggested. What was a Thor? There were two voices, and the second became clearer also. It was quieter and sweeter, a hum and a heartbeat. _Loki. No. Yes, Loki_. She knew Loki. Loki was small and dark with a secret smile. Loki had given her a globe with stars in it. Lorelei opened her eyes.

She looked at her hands, and then down the rest of her body to her feet as if she still half believed that she was nothing more than vegetable matter. How long had she been walking? Surely it could be only minutes, but it was hard to shake the feeling that it had been much, much longer.

The voices were coming toward her, and the girl stood shivering in the mist, waiting for them to pass. She was Lorelei of Asgard. She had followed Thor and Loki from the city on the back of a wolf, followed them all the way to the rugged center of the world. They had vanished through an invisible barrier and she had hurried after them, blundering into a world of roots and mist that had very nearly taken her mind and dissolved it into mist itself.

Lorelei felt a belated swell of horror. The mist and the roots and even the soft, loamy ground filled her with dread, and she longed to hurry back to the barrier and slide back into the solid world. But she realized at once that without the presence of Loki and Thor, and the sound of their voices to break the horrible stillness, she would quickly begin to lose her mind once again. So she let the brothers lead her on, further into she knew not where nor what.

"This is a doomed errand, brother," came Loki's voice.

"Fear does not become a son of Odin," was Thor's reply.

"Nor does foolhardiness."

"Silence your tongue."

"I have told you, we must converse or this place will set our minds adrift."

"Speak on some other subject, then. I am weary of your trepidation."

"You will not be deterred?"

"Why should I be? Does this not excite you? Do you not value adventure?"

"I value it above some things, and below others," was Loki's measured reply.

"How boring your cautiousness is."

"Father must have his reasons for leaving Karnilla unmolested."

For Lorelei, following soft in their footsteps, the name did nothing to ease her dread. Karnilla was one of the Æsir, but she had long ago left the company of Odin and made her home in Nornheim, where the Nornir dwelt and wove the destinies of every creature in the Nine Realms. There, she had declared herself the Queen of the Norns. Karnilla was a powerful sorceress, and was said to know secrets of magic that were hidden even to the Allfather.

"Father is too idle," Thor barked. "He would let the seeds of chaos grow around him while he feeds table scraps to his pet canines."

"His idleness is not indolence but discretion born of experience."

"Perhaps it is fear born of experience. I am here to learn for myself what force this renegade possesses, that I may know how to bring her to heel."

So this strange and fearful place was Nornheim itself. Was the swirling haze around them natural, or a creation of the enchantress queen to confound any who might find their way here? If the latter, it was fearsome magic indeed.

Suddenly Thor gave a shout of frustration. "Where in Hel's name are we?"

"Nowhere in particular it seems," said Loki mildly. "Which is not the worst place we could be. If you would only reconsider–"

"There! What's that? Lorelei heard Thor's footsteps hurrying forward.

"Have care, brother," Loki cautioned.

Lorelei hurried to follow their voices as Thor's heavy tread came come to a halt. There was a moment of silence, and she felt a stab of fear for their safety. Then the elder prince spoke in a tone that was almost reverential. "It's beautiful."

The girl crept forward, and quite suddenly there came a parting in the mist. She peeked out from the forest of roots and saw the two boys, brawny and fair, dark and slender, standing tensely side by side. In front of them shone the glassy water of a circular pond. The water was white and glowed like the brightest of the heavenly bodies.

"It is the Well of Wyrd," said Loki softly.

"What lies beneath the surface?" Thor wondered, and stepped forward.

"Careful, brother!"

The older boy's boots splashed at the edge of the Well. Abruptly the air filled with silent sound, sound that echoed in Lorelei's brain without ever making an audible noise. It was otherworldly and frightening, like the sound of the mind's electricity at work. Then a voice spoke, and it bore so deep that it brought the girl to her knees. "Ooooohhhhhhhh!" it cried. "I am awake! I am awake!"

Then another voiceless voice wailed. "Sister! What has awoken you? It is not your time to be awake!"

"Visitors! Visitors!" murmured a third presence. "We have visitors, sisters."

"Who would come here?" asked the second voice. "This place is not for outsiders."

Thor, never one to stand in silence for long, cleared his throat. "I am Thor Odinson!" he proclaimed. "Will you show yourselves to me?"

There was a flicker in the fabric of the air, and then a woman stood beside them. She was ageless, colorless, and her hands flew through the air in constant motion as she stood gazing vacantly out over the well. "I am Ver∂ani, and I am the becoming. You have awoken Urth the Past, and trespass upon the holy heart of the nine realms."

"I am an heir to the throne of Asgard, and of the Æsir who have dominion over this realm," said Thor imposingly. "How can I trespass on lands that are beneath the shadow of the Allfather?"

"The Nornir do not bow to Odin. The Allfather has no dominion here."

"If you imply that the false queen Karnilla is sovereign over these parts then you do declare yourself my enemy," Thor warned sharply.

"Even the Æsir depend upon the health of Yggdrasil, and cannot subvert the power of the Wyrd. The petty struggles of kings and queens are no concern of ours." The colorless Norn never paused in her work, weaving feverishly at an invisible loom.

Thor swelled with irritation. Loki remained silent and nearly still, only turning his head as his eyes took in everything around them. His brother spoke again in impatient tones. "We have no wish to interfere with the great tree or the work of the Nornir."

"Good. Then take yourself away and disrupt our sacred work no further."

"I will take myself away when it pleases me to do so. I will not be treated as an interloper."

There was a hiss in the air, and Lorelei felt the inhospitable presence of invisible beings close by. Could Thor not feel the danger?

"Be gone, Odinson. Your presence is not wanted." Ver∂ani kept at her weaving, but there was tension in her voice.

"Do not anger me, Norn," the boy growled.

"You are blunt and blind, and you have done enough damage here."

Thor's fist clenched and unclenched. Verbal warfare was not his bent, and Lorelei could tell he was itching to hit something. "I warn you not to make an enemy of me. I will not forget, and you will make any enemy of the entire court of Asgard."

Still, Ver∂ani wove her invisible threads. Then, she gave a laugh that was hardly a laugh, for there was no mirth in it. "What a petulant prince. It is you who must beware, for there are forces here far beyond your limited comprehension. I wonder at Odin producing such a dim offspring. You would best be silent, like your…brother." She cast her vacant eyes over Loki, who was frowning at Thor's side.

Lorelei wondered if he, too, was puzzling over why the old Norn was troubling to provoke the volatile young prince. Were they truly so troubled by visitors to this sacred place? Had Thor truly wrought some havoc by sending ripples across the surface of the Well? Lorelei had no idea what Thor might do if he were goaded for long enough. Get him away from there, Loki, she thought, and for a moment she fancied she saw the younger boy's head flick slightly in her direction.

The girl turned her glance back to Ver∂ani, whose busy hands were almost hypnotic. Lorelei stared at the Norn until her eyes began to ache, keeping her gaze locked and never blinking. Suddenly the old woman faded away as though she herself were nothing but mist. In her place was a much younger women robed in burgundy, with dark hair crowned by a fantastic headdress carved from bone. Though she had never seen her, Lorelei knew at once that this must be Karnilla. The Norn Queen's face was painted with gleeful concentration as her hands sped feverishly.

The loom at which she wove was no longer invisible, and Lorelei could see that the sorceress's work was almost complete. The tapestry was of a bright green adder, and as Lorelei gazed the snake began to writhe and struggle to free itself from the threads. It wanted only a head, and it would be complete.

Entranced by the strength of her vision, Lorelei reached out toward Thor and Loki and gave them her sight. The world went black, and the veil that shielded Karnilla from their eyes lifted.

The boys drew back in surprise, and it was Loki who reacted first. He pulled Thor backwards as the adder coiled to strike, all but its fangs now woven into the tapestry. Then the dark boy drew his hands together and a great cloud of dust rose from the ground to shield them from the Queen's sight. Thor recovered from his surprise and reached for his weapon, but Loki hauled him away from the Well, imploring him not to be a fool. Thor turned angrily away and ran.

Lorelei's sight returned to her with a dizzying recoil, and she found that she no longer had any strength to remain standing. She dropped to the ground and blinked desperately, trying to make the world stop spinning. She felt the strange suffocating calm of Ur∂arbrunnr settling over her, and her mind grew blank_._

Suddenly she felt arms around her, and heard Loki's voice murmuring in her ear. He lifted her up and hurried through the jungle of roots after Thor, talking to her in a low voice all the while. She couldn't seem to understand his words, and she couldn't remember how to form words of her own. But his voice kept her conscious, and after several minutes her sight gained focused and her mind began to clear.

The mist and roots around them gave the mysterious impression that they were not really moving. "The barrier," Loki said to her urgently. "Can you see it?"

Lorelei gazed around them with as much focus as she could command. Her eyes were dry and weary, and there seemed to be nothing but mist left in the world. Then, for a fleeting second, she caught a flash of stamping hooves.

"There," she said, pointing, and the boys rushed on, eager to leave this eerie place behind.

The world flickered, they were sliding and dropping, and suddenly they were back in the world. The wild landscape of the far reaches of Asgard once more surrounded them, and Adfall and Dynur were pawing and prancing beside them. Loki knelt and set Lorelei gently on the ground.

Thor swung at the air, letting out some of his pent up disgust. "Mark me, she shall pay for her treachery one day," he growled. He turned to the other two and looked at Lorelei in confusion, as though he was noticing her presence for the first time. Then he snorted in frustration and stormed aboard Adfall, riding away thunderously.

Loki and Lorelei watched as Thor vanished into the wild scenery, thrashing his mount as he galloped. Then Lorelei looked over at her friend with gratitude and weariness. "Thank you, Loki."

"I think I should be thanking you."

Lorelei looked down in embarrassment. "How did you know I was there?"

"You need a bit more practice at being stealthy," he teased.

"Did you know I was following you the whole time?"

"Not until the end. But I knew it must have been you who showed us Karnilla."

"Do you mind that I followed you?"

"I shall mind if anything ever happens to you," he replied, which was not really an answer.

"I'm sorry, Keir," she said. His face softened, and he smiled at the familiar nickname, which meant "little dark one." Thor was golden-skinned and fair, a mature adolescent already grown tall and broad. In contrast, Loki was dark-haired and bright-eyed, slender, still more a boy than a man. From anyone else he would have resented the name, but he knew that from her it was a term of affection.

"Your magic is growing," she said after a time.

He raised his eyebrows. "So is yours."

"It seems to have a mind of its own," she confessed. "It…it reached out to you by itself. I wouldn't have known how to do it on my own."

"You have power, Lorelei," the dark boy said. "It can be frightening to glimpse your own potential."

"I didn't feel powerful when it happened," she said. "I felt helpless, like I was being used by a force that it much stronger than I am. Do you ever feel that way?"

"Sometimes," Loki admitted. Then he gave a half smile. "But I rather like it. It feels as though I am connected to a larger purpose, as though I've been chosen."

Purpose. Yes, she could understand that. Purpose had always been important to Loki. He was always looking outward, shaping his place in the world.

"Loki," she said after a time.

"Hmm?"

"Will you tell me what were you really doing here?" Lorelei knew Loki well enough to know that he would not have simply followed his brother on a fool's errand to Nornheim with no mission of his own. Once he might have, for the shear adventure. But lately there always seemed to be a double purpose about Loki, even in his lightest and most mischievous moods.

Perhaps it had even been he himself who planted the germ of the idea. Loki was becoming a master of reverse suggestion, and the impetuous Thor was an easy mark. The more the younger boy protested that something was a bad idea, the more likely the elder was to do it anyway, to prove that he was bold and unafraid.

Loki gave her one of his searching looks. He rarely kept things from her, but this time she felt that he was calculating how much he could say. There was a wariness in his eyes; she had seen it often around other people but never before when they were alone. "Not now, my heart," he said finally.

The endearment smarted. In one breath he seemed to say that he loved her but he did not trust her. At least he had not pretended that he didn't know what she meant. That was something. Then again, perhaps it was not a sign of respect, but simply of acceptance that she had seen through him. "You know that I would never betray you," she said softly.

To her surprise, Loki scowled. "Do not make such a claim, or such a promise."

"It's true!" she flared, stung by his angry dismissal.

"They are just words," he snapped back.

"Words are not meaningless! You of all people –"

"I know," he said quickly, his face still dark.

"If there was some other way I could prove it to you…"

His scowl dropped away and he took her hand. "Truly, Lorelei, it isn't you but rather the vow itself. I would rather have your friendship than your loyalty."

"How can there be one without the other?"

"Betrayal can be an act of love. Friendship and loyalty are not the same thing."

Lorelei was confused and troubled. Without quite knowing why, she threw her arms around Loki's shoulders and hugged him close. He hugged her back, pressing his lips against the top of her head.

Lorelei asked him no more questions. She held on to his hand, feeling somehow closer to him than she ever had before. But she felt, too, that there was a constraint between them, and she did not know how to overcome it.

Nor was it entirely Loki's doing. How could she press him when she also had a secret? The more she probed him the more he would see into her thoughts. It was always that way with Loki. And there was something she had seen in Ur∂arbrunnr that she was not ready to share even with him.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two

...

Lorelei crept up the stairs to her room, nervous that someone might notice and question the state of her dress, mud-streaked as it was. But she saw no one until she burst through the door of her chamber to see lounging on her bed the person she had most feared to speak with.

"You've been naughty," Amora said with a smirk. "How refreshing."

Lorelei looked at her sister warily. Amora's languid posture and laughing expression so often camouflaged a nasty humor.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Not a thing, my sweet sister," the older girl said carelessly. The sisters stared at each other for a moment, and then Lorelei turned to her mirror and began to undo the buttons and laces of her wrinkled and muddy dress.

Amora watched Lorelei's reflection closely, until impatience began to creep into her languorous posture. She rose sinuously to a sitting position and swung her legs to the floor. "Come, angel," she murmured. "Aren't we going to talk?"

"If you like." Lorelei was cautious. She knew there was no escaping Amora when she was in a mood like this, cat-like, and it was important to tread carefully.

"I think we must. Before it's too late."

"Too late for what."

"Too late for you," Amora replied, and giggled horribly. She came up behind Lorelei and wound her arms around her younger sister's neck, a little too tightly.

Lorelei coughed as Amora's forearm pressed gently against her throat."I won't tell anyone."

"If you do," Amora said, laughing into her ear, "I'll carve out your liver with a spoon." She pulled the soiled dress away from her sister's shoulders and clasped them sharply.

"Have I ever betrayed your secrets?" Lorelei asked as calmly as she could.

"Of course not. You would never dare." She dug her nails lightly into her sister's skin. "Sweet, silent, obedient Lorelei."

Lorelei was cold in her shift, and Amora's hands were icy. The older girl whispered again. "But how difficult it must be. To tell no one that you saw your own sister at the Well of Wyrd, standing side by side with the witch queen of the Norns."

Amora ran her fingers through her sister's windblown auburn hair, ripping tangles apart with painful jerks. "How interested Thor the Thick-Headed would be to know that I have welcome passage where he is denied."

Lorelei did not reply.

"And how interested your beloved Loki with his precious little tricks would be to know all the deep secrets of magic that Karnilla has chosen to share with me," Amora continued, jabbing more sharply.

Lorelei looked at her sister's face in the wardrobe mirror. She was beautiful and frozen, with a face that laughed while her eyes remained pale and fierce. "Karnilla is teaching you?"

"She has taken me as her apprentice."

"Why?" Lorelei let slip, betraying her interest.

"Because I'm brilliant, my love. And, I suspect, she enjoys having someone to show off to," she added indifferently, with more insight than Lorelei would have given her credit for. But after all, you cannot manipulate people, as Amora loved to do, without understanding what motivated them.

"Karnilla is the greatest sorceress the world has ever known. For now," Amora finished. And she laughed again with a brittle hilarity that threatened to shatter.

"You were there, standing by as Karnilla wove," Lorelei said softly.

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I shall laugh for days to think of Thor's blustering idiocy."

"Would you have let the adder strike him?" she asked.

"Oh my precious darling," Amora said pityingly. "Do you truly believe it was your magic that saved him at the Well?"

"It was," said Lorelei in confusion.

"Your beautiful eyes, perhaps," the older girl said, caressing her sister's cheekbone with a long fingernail. "But I was the one who captured your sight and shared it with that great blond oaf, to keep him from posturing absurdly before his own doom."

Lorelei felt hot with embarrassment. So she had been right after all, had she known it, when she confessed her experience to Loki. She had been used by a power stronger than she was, she had been nothing more than a tool… "Why did you bother, when you despise Thor so?" she wondered bitterly.

"Lei," Amora pouted, "Do you believe me capable of standing by while my childhood friend is murdered?"

What did she believe Amora incapable of? "I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Besides," Amora shrugged. "A fool in a position of power can be useful to those who are not fools. Thor can be plucked like a lute. I shall look forward to playing him."

Lorelei thought of Loki's easy manipulation of his impetuous brother, and knew that Amora was more right than she knew. Suddenly, she was desperate to get away, before her sister could dig her nails into any more vulnerable places. She pulled a clean frock over her shift and laced it hastily.

But Amora was not finished. "Lei," she said, drawing her arms around Lorelei's waist and resting her chin on her sister's collarbone. "Do you love me?"

"Of course," Lorelei whispered.

"Not as much as you love Odin's changeling."

"Don't call him that!" she blurted.

Amora laughed. "Loki is so thin and dark and hungry. The Allfather must be thrilled to have such a son."

Lorelei flushed angrily.

"And yet you adore him. It's to him you run with your secrets, your fears, your sadness. Never to me."

"He is my best friend."

"I'm your sister." Amora squeezed her tightly, pressing her cheek against Lorelei's. "I could teach you, you know. All the dark and beautiful secrets that the Norn Queen shares with me. Power that Loki can only dream of."

"I don't want her secrets."

"Of course you do," Amora hissed. "You dream of magic. Of great power. I can see it in you. I can see your envy."

Lorelei shuddered and tried to pull away, but Amora held her tightly and whispered, her voice soft again. "Think how powerful we could be. There is such strength to be had, such forces in the realms. I can feel them. I can be potent on my own, but you and I could be unstoppable."

"No one is unstoppable."

"Not yet. But you and I, Lei…we could be everything."

"What would you do if you were unstoppable?"

"Drink the oceans. Hold worlds in my hand and spin them apart. Ride the back of the great serpent and see everything that has ever been or will be." For a moment Amora's eyes were dreamy and she looked almost gentle. Lorelei remembered chilly nights as a tiny girl, crawling into her sister's bed and listening to stories of dragons and giants and sorcery. Amora used to have the same look during those stories, her voice filled with wonder and her eyes alight with passion and excitement. Lorelei would have done anything for Amora then.

"You're remembering, my pet," Amora murmured. "How we loved each other once. We were all we had." She petted her sister's hair with what almost seemed to Lorelei like genuine tenderness. "You're still all I have. Let me teach you."

"Let me be, Amora. I don't want to be you," she said quietly.

Amora recoiled as though from a blow, and stood pale and angry. "If you turn from me I'll…"

"You'll what?" Lorelei demanded shakily.

"You are my flesh and blood."

"I don't belong to you."

"You're all I have!" she repeated.

"What do you want?"

"Don't leave me."

"Where would I go?" Lorelei said helplessly.

"I don't mean this room. This palace. Asgard. I mean _here_." Amora clutched violently at her heart. "I am by your side, but you shut me out. I feel myself slipping away. From everything. Sometimes I think I'm…I'm out of my mind. Can you believe that?" She laughed shrilly.

"With you I know who I am. Where I belong, You are the only one who can hold on to me. My flesh and blood. My sister." Her voice had risen almost to a panic, desperation shining through cracks in her icy demeanor.

Lorelei looked dumbly at her unhinged, impulsive, cruel, vain, and brilliant sister. Not knowing what else to do, she hugged Amora, half in fear and half with some echo of the adoration she used to feel for her only family.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Three

...

"What would you do if you were all-powerful?"

Lorelei lay on her back hugging her knees to her chest, her eyes trained upwards through the great domed roof of the observatory. The stars were so thick in the heavens that the sky glowed blue, like a bioluminescent wave frozen on a beach. She had been counting planets, picking out their paler, steadier light from amidst the trillions of distant suns, when she made up her mind to ask the question that had truly been occupying her mind.

Loki was standing some feet away, his brow furrowed with effort. For half an hour he had been standing with his palm upturned toward the vivid sky. Slowly, faintly, his hand had begun to glow and then, so gradually that it seemed at first like a trick of the eyes, constellations of stars began to appear on his palm. Finally, his hand seemed to vanish entirely and to leave in its place a fragment of the night sky itself.

At the sound of her question he glanced down at her, and then abruptly dusted off his hands. The constellations he had gathered flew into the air, a cloud of fluorescent flour shaken from a cook's apron. He sat cross-legged on the floor next to Lorelei and cupped his chin in his hands.

"If I were all-powerful?"

"Yes."

"I don't really know," he said thoughtfully.

"You must have some idea. I mean, you could do anything you want. Have anything you want. What do you want?"

"Many, many things. But that doesn't seem good enough."

Lorelei wrinkled her forehead at Loki. "What do you mean?"

"Don't you think, if you had all the power in the world—you could do anything—you would feel an obligation to not just do…anything?"

"I suppose."

"The more power I had the more I would feel as though I had to do something truly tremendous. Anyone with all that power really would be a god, and gods don't just make toys."

"Do we know that for certain?" she wondered, stretching out her legs. "We could all be some god's playthings. All of our struggles just a game."

"No," he returned, a bit shortly. "If something made us then it made something that matters, if only to us."

"So you wouldn't play games," said Lorelei with a smile.

"Well…" Loki grinned, "Not just games. It would feel wrong to waste all the power in the world on my own petty wants."

"Selfish?"

"Not exactly…just—not enough."

"Perhaps being selfish would be the only way to use such power selflessly," she mused. "If you don't restrict yourself to your own desires then you begin to interfere in the lives of other people."

"Ah, but satisfying all of your own desires would inevitably do that as well," Loki disagreed. "For example, I couldn't satisfy my own desire that Thor be inflicted with permanently bad breath without interfering with his quality of life."

She giggled. "Bad breath? That's the worst you can come up with?"

"I have no wish to come up with anything worse," Loki demurred. "I love my brother. But," he added, "I wouldn't mind if he had a little extra incentive to keep his mouth shut once in a while."

Lorelei made a peculiar face and went silent for a time. "You don't sound as though you'd want it," she continued at last.

"Want what?"

"All that power. To be all-powerful. To have the responsibility of deciding what you would do with it."

"I didn't say that," Loki replied quickly. "Who doesn't think they could run the world better than anyone else if they were given the chance?"

"I suppose," she said doubtfully." But who would want to?"

"Not you?"

"Gods no."

"Oh dear, maybe just me then." He widened his eyes innocently. "I shall have to watch myself."

Lorelei feigned horror. "If you ever try to rule the world I shall be forced to destroy your credibility by revealing the embarrassing details of the infamous cockatoo incident."

"Not that!"

"And…I'll tell your mother on you."

"Alright, then. Your turn. What would you do if you were all-powerful?"

"Oh, I don't really know either," she said carelessly.

He frowned at her slightly, then shrugged. He always knew when she lied. "Fair enough."

"Really, I don't. I have some ideas, but…I guess you're right. They all sound sort of feeble," she said half-truthfully.

"Okay."

"It was Amora made me wonder about it." She fell silent, and pretended to resume her study of the planets.

"Loki, do you like Amora?"

If Loki was surprised by the question he didn't show it. "I have some fondness for her, I suppose. I've known her all my life. But no, I don't really like her."

"What do you think of her?"

"I think she is brilliant and beautiful."

"She is. Is that all?"

"I think she's passionate. Impulsive. Unpredictable. I think she can be ill-tempered, sometimes cruel."

"She has a great talent for magic. Perhaps more than you. Certainly more than I have."

"You are younger than she. You hardly know your own power yet."

"I know enough to know that it's nothing like hers."

"It doesn't have to be."

Lorelei rose impatiently to a sitting position. "Please, don't try to make me feel better. It's not about my pride. Well, not entirely. It's just…aren't you ever afraid?"

"Of Amora? Or something else?"

"Not just Amora…of power, and power in the wrong hands. Amora with all her witchcraft in one of her cruel humors. Heimdall with his eyes prying everywhere. Mjolnir and the throne of Asgard in the possession of an egotistical dimwit. Doesn't it ever worry you?"

Loki gave a half smile. "Leave Thor to me."

Lorelei looked at him curiously. "You really do love him, don't you? In spite of everything?"

"Of course."

"Why?"

Loki shrugged. "He's my brother."

"Ah."

"I'm well-placed to see the worst in him, but I see the good, too. And I understand that he may need a certain, ah…supervision, from time to time."

"And you would love him no matter what?"

"Well, I think so. He's my blood. Is that strange?"

"Strange…no, of course not. That's the way it should be. Blood is forever. Who can we turn to if not family?"

"Something like that."

"So I'm to leave Thor to you, which leaves Amora in all her moods to me."

"Careful, Lorelei, I can handle Thor, but—"

"Ah!" Lorelei said with a slightly sour smile. "And there we have the truth."

"Don't—"

"You can handle Thor, but I can't handle Amora."

"Perhaps not, but that has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with Amora."

Lorelei rolled her eyes. "It has a little to do with me though, doesn't it? I've always fed off the crumbs of her magic and your magic, and you pat me on the head and tell me how special I am, but the truth is I can barely cast a simple spell!"

"Your magic saved my life. I am hardly likely to disparage it."

Lorelei flushed uncomfortably. She felt mortified at the memory of the Well of Wyrd, of how proud she had felt to come to her friends' aid, and of the cruel way in which Amora had told her the truth. She hated the idea that Loki admired her for a lie and longed to tell him what had really happened, but she was afraid for his sake and her own of what might follow if he knew everything that had passed in Nornheim.

"That was an accident," she said stiffly. "And it almost killed me. I don't want to think about it."

Loki looked puzzled but didn't press her. "As you like, darling, but listen—my worries are nothing to do with magic. I don't want you to feel that you have to be responsible for the way Amora may behave when she's in a nasty mood. You know better than I how unpleasant she can be, but she's too clever to be led from behind."

"Or I'm not clever enough."

"That's not true."

"I just wish I stood some chance of being her equal."

"If you insist on measuring only by the things at which she excels, then you don't give yourself a very good chance."

"I have to measure by what matters."

"Magic is not the only thing that matters."

"Of course it's not the _only _thing," Lorelei said impatiently. "But it looms rather large, don't you think? She could be more powerful than all of us, you know."

"Lorelei, you do not need her power. You are better than she."

"How?" she asked scornfully.

"You are sweet, and kind, and honest."

Lorelei scowled. "I didn't know those were qualities you admired."

"I can admire in others what I don't possess myself," Loki answered dryly.

"Wonderful. Amora will command the oceans one day, and I'm _nice_."

"That's not what I said."

"When did being nice ever outdo magic? It's not _enough_."

"When it comes to magic, none of us may ever be able to match her."

"Exactly!" Lorelei cried, clutching his arm. "And what then, Loki?"

"I don't know, exactly. But I know it will not be your burden to face alone." He took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. After a moment, Lorelei sighed, met his eyes and smiled.

Later, after Loki had departed for his room and his bed, Lorelei stood in the observatory, looking down over the great city through a filigreed window. She had always turned to Loki for advice, and depended on his shrewdness, but this time he didn't understand. He thought Amora could be unpleasant and cruel, yes, but that was all. Is that what other people believed also? That her sister was some sort of overgrown child who liked to throw temper tantrums?

Amora was cunning, of course. She kept most of her claws retracted in front of everyone except the little sister who was too cowed to speak out or to fight back. As a result, no one else understood the truth, no one else seemed to see what she saw in her sister. No one seemed to realize the scope of her ambition, or of her potential, or of her malice. No one seemed to realize that Amora was mad.

Lorelei knew for a certainty what others around her might only half-jokingly imagine—that her sister would one day need to be stopped. And if they weren't prepared, how could they ever hope to succeed? No, none of them understood. That was why she had told Loki that she didn't know what she would do if she were suddenly all-powerful, when in reality she knew that the first thing she would do if she had all the power in the world would be to remove Amora from it forever.

He might even despise her for it, and she couldn't bear that. After all, despite Thor's dullness, his egotism, his temper and his aggressiveness, Loki still loved him because he was his brother, his blood. That was how things should be. How could he guess that she had one advantage over her sister that might render all Amora's power useless, if she used it right? Because despite all of her cruelty and threats, Lorelei knew that her sister still love her. But she hated Amora.


End file.
